A NASA and NSF-funded research, carried out by a team from the University of California Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, has announced the discovery of an exoplanet, three times the mass of Earth, that orbits a nearby star and is placed in the middle of the star's “habitable zone”.

They have shared the exciting discovery after eleven years of observations, with one of the largest optical telescopes in the world, the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

A “potentially habitable planet” is a planet on which life could exist, but not necessarily human life, and this depends on several factors, out of which having liquid water and atmosphere are sine qua non.

And as the planet is placed in an area where liquid water could exist on its surface, the Gliese 581g (named after its star Gliese 581) could be the most Earth-like exoplanet ever discovered.

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There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far~ ruminations

First potentially habitable planet discovered? Well I guess that makes sense seeing how most aliens always seem to come to our planet, everywhere seems to be a bad place to live.

Coming to Earth to get away from the trouble in their own backyards? Now there's a switch. With everything going on now I'd say they were getting a bad deal

Alien: Let's invade Earth so that we can use their abundant fossil fuel deposits to replace our diminishing reserves! They ARE abundant, right? I mean, we did just check up on them not 200 years ago when we set out on our quest to invade them.

I like how the planet orbits with the sun, in that one side is always dark, and one always sunny. You could stage some pretty epic good vs evil fights on that planet! It would also make a great location for a sci-fi 'Heaven and Hell is a planet separated by light' story crossed with avatar or something.

I also like how one of the scientists apparently said he was 100% sure there will be life on that planet.

I like how the planet orbits with the sun, in that one side is always dark, and one always sunny. You could stage some pretty epic good vs evil fights on that planet! It would also make a great location for a sci-fi 'Heaven and Hell is a planet separated by light' story crossed with avatar or something.

I also like how one of the scientists apparently said he was 100% sure there will be life on that planet.

Confident chap. Let the genocide of the native population begin!

Is it genocide if it's just, say, bacteria? 'Cuz we do that every day without even trying.

Yeah, but remember what happened that other time we encountered a somewhat intelligent but very aggresive alien species? Y'know...the ones that burst out of people's chests? That didn't end well. Mind you, if we'd sent in a whole army instead of a handful of soldiers, well, who knows. Maybe we wouldn't have had to nuke the site from orbit.

A “potentially habitable planet” is a planet on which life could exist, but not necessarily human life, and this depends on several factors, out of which having liquid water and atmosphere are sine qua non.

And by "life could exist" they mean life similar to the lifeforms of Earth. There isn't any reason to think other forms of life could not exist in different types of environments.

A “potentially habitable planet” is a planet on which life could exist, but not necessarily human life, and this depends on several factors, out of which having liquid water and atmosphere are sine qua non.

And by "life could exist" they mean life similar to the lifeforms of Earth. There isn't any reason to think other forms of life could not exist in different types of environments.

Like water bears. Adorable little micro-organisms that not only survived for 10 days in the vacuum of space, but actually bred in it. If nuclear armageddon were to happen right now, the water bears wouldn't really notice.